Greetings and salutations! As summer wanes for most of the country, the oppressive heat lingers through August in North Texas. Yet, there are encouraging signs for the coming fall–the green grass is morphing to a maize hue, legendary Texas high school football has already kicked off the new season, college football has made its debut and the Texas Rangers are falling back to earth from a promising start. In short, late summer as usual in Dallas.

This Chapter will follow up on Chapter 57’s Argentinian trip with a subsequent excursion to picturesque Chile and its rather amazing wines. I departed from Santiago with a heightened respect for the Chilean wine industry and its delicious wines. I will echo my sentiments from Chapter 57 that the fine wines produced by Chilean winemakers often get overlooked by the wine consumers of the USA when the discussion of wine excellence ensues. While it is true that some decent value wines are produced by Chile for the entry and bargain wine market in North America, we wine sleuths should ignore the upper tier of the Chilean wine producers at our peril. World class labels like Don Melchor and Almaviva (each in the stable of the mammoth Concho Y Toro group) consistently deliver highly rated, polished and nuanced Cabernet Sauvignons and Bordeaux blends that will compete with the storied wines of Bordeaux, Napa Valley and beyond yet are priced at the level of a middling Napa Cab at between $120 and $150. I was able to taste the 2019 vintage of each label’s flagship offering on my trip, and the respective 98 and 97 ratings of the Big Reds bestowed by James Suckling seemed to be unerring to my palate. Truly brilliant wines by any measure–not just good Chilean wines.

However, as stellar as those Concho Y Toro wines were, my favorite memories of the Chilean trip were from smaller, boutique wineries scattered in the Maipo Valley within an hour or two of Santiago. The first winery my hearty and enthusiastic group visited bright and early one morning was the picturesque LOF winery (pictured above), just in the shadows of the stunning Andes mountains. LOF is a privately-held winery that was founded in 2005 and which was named from the word for “clan” in the native language of the Mapuches, indigenous people of southern Chile. Winemaker German Lyon is evidently a bit of a maverick, and both of the elegant Big Reds of LOF, the 2020 Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2018 Syrah, were produced and aged (2 and 1 years, respectively) not in the traditional oak, but in the custom concrete containers pictured below.

However, the lack of the classic oak finish did not seem to lessen the elegant finish or the approachability of either LOF wine, and we were told that the winemaker expected each wine to develop over the next decade. We were able to sample the LOF wines with pairings of cheeses, meats and nuts. Unfortunately, LOF doesn’t appear to have strong (if any) distribution to the US, but you can obtain their bargain wines on the website: https://vinoslof.cl/

Our next barnstorming stop in the picturesque Maipo Valley was Antiyal, a family winery founded in 1996 by Alvaro Espinoza, a storied and decorated Chilean winemaker who still mans the position for Antiyal. Antiyal is a leader in organic and biodynamic winemaking for Chilean wines. Interestingly, one of the major grapes in Chile is Carmenere, a French grape that was long assumed to have become defunct, when remarkably it was discovered by Mr. Espinoza with some help from a French botanist in the early 1990’s. Until this discovery, many of the Carmenere grapes were erroneously thought to be Merlot.

While at Antiyal, we sampled several varietals, including the 2021 Pura Fe, a Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2019 Kuyen, a red blend, and the signature Vinedo Escorial 2019, the Carmenere. Although I enjoyed both the Pura Fe and the Kuyen, the Vinedo Escorial Carmenere was a standout. The Antiyal Carmenere was a plush, rounded red, medium bodied with a profile of red fruits and bakers spice, with a luxurious and lengthy finish. If you have not enjoyed a Chilean Carmenere, I highly recommend this wine to you. For my North Texas sleuths, I have confirmed that Pogo’s in Dallas carries several of the Antiyal wines, including my favorite, the Vinedo Escorial 2019, for a retail of $68. https://www.pogoswine.com/websearch_results.html?kw=antiyal For the record, the Wine Advocate agrees with my assessment and bestowed a stellar 93 rating on this Chilean Big Red.

Keeping in mind that the Southern Hemisphere is opposite of the Northern Hemisphere in terms of season, the May visit to Chile was essentially late fall getting ready for winter locally, Accordingly, the grapevines were dormant and the colors of the leaves a brilliant red and orange, as the photograph below shows.

Concho Y Toro, LOF and Antiyal are but a couple of examples of world class Chilean wineries, and your humble sleuth heartily recommends that you fellow sleuths make your way to Chile to sample these brilliant wines yourselves!

And now, without further ado, on to this month’s recommended wines for your cellar!

Value Wine No. 1: KIRKLAND SIGNATURE MALBEC MENDOZA 2017

OK, fellow sleuths, I’ll call this one my Wednesday Night Wine special. Would you believe that you can grab a high-quality, tasty, medium-bodied Argentinian Malbec for the crazy price of $6.99? Believe it or not, the Kirkland Signature Malbec Mendoza 2017 is just that, and our recommendation of this Value Wine is solidly reinforced by a 91 rating from James Suckling and and 89 rating from Wine Spectator to boot! Widely available at your local Costco and ready to drink, this well-crafted Argentinian Malbec (reportedly made by the winemaker from a leading Mendoza winery, as I discovered with a little sleuthing) has a profile of raspberry and cherry, with fresh acidity and a peppery finish. Do you have some thirsty friends coming by for burgers or ribs this weekend? A case of 90 point Malbec for under $100? How are you going to beat this deal?

Value Wine No. 2: JOEL GOTT SAUVIGNON BLANC 2022

Value Wine No. 2 for this Chapter is the Joel Gott Sauvignon Blanc 2022, widely available for the great price of $12 per bottle. This value Sav Blanc is a blend of various California fruit, but the Joel Gott winemaking team has managed to blend in a refreshing, flexible wine some warmer climate hints that include Key Lime pie, green apple and a hint of ginger. I would love to pair this with some boiled Gulf shrimp or East Coast raw oysters! Stout 91 rating by the experts at Wine Spectator. There is real value in this Joel Gott offering. Great Sav Blanc for $12? Seriously, what are you waiting for, my fellow sleuths?!

Worth a Splurge Wine: BACIGALUPI CHARDONNAY 2020

The Bacigalupi Vineyards name is not widely know except by high end wine producers for the simple fact that this family-owned winery which has been growing grapes in the Russian River AVA since 1956(!) only bottles 20% of its grape production from the Bacigalupi vineyards under its own label and sells the rest to more famous wineries such as Gary Farrell, Williams Selyem, Fantesca and Adobe Road Winery, among many, many others. So high quality are the grapes produced at this picturesque farm within a solid driver’s distance of the Russian River that their grapes constituted 40% of the juice in the world-changing, winning Chardonnay of Chateau Montelena in the 1976 Judgment in Paris (See a summary in Chapter 25 of TWBS: https://www.thewinebargainsleuth.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=641&action=edit ). The 2020 vintage of the Bacigalupi Chardonnay is made from 100% Wente Clones and is the product of a warm yet excellent vintage grown from 65 year old vines. A hint of floral notes and apricot first appear on the on the palate, followed a hint of cream and lemon zest, with a lovely and lengthy elegant finish. Interested sleuths may obtain a bottle or three directly from the winery by reaching out on the winery’s website: https://bacigalupivineyards.com/product/2020-chardonnay. The winery sells this world-changing Chard for $65. You’ll be delighted to taste it yourself!

Thought for the Day: A BITTERSWEET NOTE FROM THE SLEUTH

As I was putting my final touches on this Chapter 58, I learned of the sad news that one of my favorite musical artists and poets, Jimmy Buffett, died on September 1, ironically on the very Labor Day weekend that had become a Parrothead staple as an annual end of summer rite for his legions of passionate fans. Those who are even casual fans of Jimmy Buffett will also be well-aware that the last thing that JB would ever wish on his fans or the world in general would be sadness at his last day on this planet. Accordingly, I would like to take this opportunity to share some Buffett wisdom and humor that has steeled your humble Sleuth over the past 43 years of Jimmy’s music, if you’ll indulge me.

“It was too much tequila, or not quite enough…” — Semi-True Stories

“You know you cannot trust them, ’cause they know they can’t trust you…” — Banana Republics

“He was on his third drink before the wheels of the plane leave the ground…” — The Weather Is Here, I Wish You Were Beautiful

“In a Bourbon Street bar, I received my first scar, from an old man so tattered and torn…” The Wino and I Know

“I think about Paris, when I’m high on red wine, I wish I could jump on a plane...” –Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

“It’s my job, to be different than the rest, and that’s enough reason to go for me, it’s my job, to be better than the rest, and that makes the day for me…” It’s My Job

“I go for younger women, I lived with several awhile, and though I ran ’em away, they’d come back someday, and still could manage a smile…” A Pirate Looks at 40

“Old men in tanktops, cruising the gift shops, checking out chiquitas down by the shore; they dream about weight loss, wish they could be their own boss, those 3 day vacations become such a bore...” Margaritaville (lost verse)

As a parting thought, I’m going to try my level best to honor Jimmy Buffett by treating the people of the world with kindness and good humor, and by doing lots of good things for the world that nobody knows about. At the end of the day, I think that is a fitting legacy for Mr. Buffett. Sail on, Pirate King. Your life and times truly mattered, and I will never forget my brief encounter with you on Royal Street in New Orleans, not to mention the 53 JB shows I was treated to since 1981.

Until the next Chapter, Cheers to you wine sleuths!

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